Pope John Paul II, who defied Soviet communism, transformed the papacy and led the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics into Christianity's third millennium, died Saturday. His death, at age 84, ended the most eventful pontificate in centuries.

The pope, shown here at a general audience in 1990, 'had a very profound effect on people around the world,' a supporter said.

Giulio Broglio, AP

The first Polish pope served for 26 years. His was the longest papacy of the 20th century and the third-longest in history.

Once robust, John Paul was ravaged first by a 1981 assassination attempt and later by Parkinson's disease, which limited his ability to walk and speak. Eventually, his health raised questions about whether an incapacitated pope should abdicate.

John Paul appointed more cardinals and bishops than any other pope. Between his world travels and public audiences, he probably was seen in person by more people than anyone in history.

He denounced what he called the "culture of death," including abortion, capital punishment and research on stem cells from human embryos. He mended fences with other religions and promoted political freedom, particularly for those living in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

He refused to discuss changing church policies that prohibit female or married priests, and he insisted that his bishops toe the same line.

The pope "had a very profound effect on people around the world," said the Rev. Francis Buckley, a University of San Francisco theologian. "He has inspired people from many different cultures to take risks for the sake of the future."

He had his detractors, too. In his 2005 book The Pontiff in Winter, British scholar John Cornwell argued that for all his good works, John Paul's lasting legacy was "oppression and exclusion, trust in papal absolutism, and antagonistic divisions."

Rise to the Vatican

John Paul was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in 1920 in the Polish industrial town of Wadowice, about 35 miles south of Krakow. His father was a retired soldier who made his living as a tailor. His mother was a schoolteacher.

Wojtyla's childhood was framed by tragedy. An infant sister had died before he was born, and his mother died when he was 8. When he was 12, his older brother and only sibling died at 26 during a scarlet fever epidemic.

In school, Wojtyla took to poetry, philosophy and oratory. He attended Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he joined a theater group and wrote plays.

In 1941, during World War II, his father died, and Wojtyla found himself alone in a Poland that had been invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. He turned to God, taking up studies for the priesthood in Krakow's seminary, which had to operate in secret.

"Having lived in a country that had to fight for its existence in the face of aggression of its neighbors, I have understood what exploitation is," he would recall. "I put myself immediately on the side of the poor, the disinherited, the oppressed, the marginalized and the defenseless."

In 1944, one of Wojtyla's fellow seminarians was arrested and shot. Wojtyla's name appeared on a Nazi wanted list. That forced him to hide at the home of the archbishop of Krakow until the war's end in 1945.

Wojtyla was ordained as a priest in 1946 and finished his doctorate in theology. By age 38, he was one of the youngest bishops in Poland and a full professor at the only Catholic university in Eastern Europe that the Communists allowed to operate.

At the church's Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, aimed at modernizing the Roman Catholic Church, the young bishop helped persuade Pope Paul VI to publish a defense of the religious freedoms denied in Poland. But Wojtyla ultimately thought that the changes stemming from "Vatican II," which loosened church authority over priests, left the faith open to divergent interpretations.

In 1964, he was consecrated archbishop of Krakow. Three years later he was named a cardinal. When Pope Paul VI died in 1978, Wojtyla was not considered a likely successor. Italians had monopolized the position for centuries, and an Italian — John Paul I — was elected by the assembled cardinals.

But John Paul I died after only 34 days in office. When neither of two leading Italian candidates to succeed him garnered the necessary two-thirds majority, the cardinals settled on the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. Wojtyla chose as his papal name John Paul II. He was 58.

Immensely popular

The new pope inherited a church in crisis. Vatican finances were in chaos. Thousands of priests and nuns had left during the 1960s and '70s. Millions of Catholics lived under communist oppression. Millions of others in the West openly ignored church teaching.

The new pope was immediately popular. People around the world seemed to appreciate the ruddy-cheeked man in white who bent to kiss the ground in every nation where his plane landed. They liked his piety and his vigor, his sense of humor and his intolerance for greed, war and oppression. He was fluent in eight languages, learning Spanish after becoming pope.

John Paul waited just four months before making the first papal visit to Poland. In front of huge crowds, he challenged the government by telling Poles they should not be subjugated. His remarks helped galvanize the Solidarity labor movement, and the pope communicated with jailed Solidarity members by sending messages hidden in priests' robes.

Poland eventually became one of the first countries in Eastern Europe to throw off Soviet shackles. The pope also encouraged democratic, non-violent opposition movements in Paraguay, Chile and the Philippines.

And he called on Americans to open their hearts to the rest of the world: "The poor of the United States and of the world are your brothers and sisters in Christ," he said at a Mass at Yankee Stadium in 1979. "You must never be content to leave them just the crumbs from the feast."

He prayed with Jews in a Rome synagogue in 1986, the first bishop of Rome to do so since St. Peter, the first pope. Seven years later, the Vatican and Israel established formal diplomatic relations. In 2001, in Damascus, he became the first pope to visit a mosque.

A disciplined clergy

When John Paul became pope, some Catholic leaders wanted to relax traditional rules and doctrines. Previous pontiffs had tolerated some deviation. But this pope allowed almost none.

In 1981, he issued an edict that priests couldn't serve as politicians. That effectively ended the government career of Rep. Robert Drinan, D-Mass., a priest with a voting record in support of abortion rights. In 1986, theologian Charles Curran's license to teach Catholic theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., was revoked because he questioned official teachings on sexual morality.

In 1985, the pope defrocked four Nicaraguan priests for refusing to quit the leftist Sandinista government. And after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued controversial letters on war, economics and women, the Vatican said it would preview such future pronouncements.

The pope had strong views on politics and policy. He opposed the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Days after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said: "Peace is the only way to build a more just and caring society. Violence and arms can never solve human problems."

When he ordered priests to denounce abortion from the pulpit, some warned that it would frighten away churchgoers. He refused to relent, saying: "A nation that kills its own children has no future."

Critics said his refusal to consider an array of opinions led to mistakes.

He conferred papal knighthood on Kurt Waldheim, a former Austrian president who had worked for German intelligence in World War II. He pushed sainthood for Pope Pius XII, who has been accused of doing little to confront Nazi persecution of the Jews. His American critics said he failed to detect or halt sexual misconduct by priests, including abuse of children.

But John Paul seems to have left a more vibrant church than the one he inherited. Although Western nations saw a slight drop in Mass attendance, parishes grew in Africa and Latin America, home to half the world's Catholics.

Forgiveness

Unlike popes in the past, who stayed close to home even when they left the Vatican, John Paul visited more than 133 countries.

Nothing stopped him, not even an attempt on his life. In 1981, a would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, shot the pope in the abdomen in St. Peter's Square. John Paul was hospitalized for 20 days after undergoing surgery. In his fifth book, Memory and Identity, released in 2005, the pope said that heading to the hospital in the ambulance, he had "a strange feeling of confidence" he would live.

And, as Jesus forgave his executioners, the pope went to Agca's cell and forgave him.

He continued to travel even after he was nearly crippled in his later years by the effects of Parkinson's disease and arthritis.

In March 2000, he made an unprecedented plea for forgiveness for 2,000 years of errors by Catholics, including high church officials. And in a visit to Israel, he visited the Wailing Wall and inserted a prayer on a piece of paper that asked forgiveness for the anti-Semitism of Catholicism's past.

John Paul's last years, in which he sometimes drooled or dozed in public, were marked by speculation about how sick he was.

In his book, critic Cornwell acknowledged that the relentless pope was "a living symbol of the consolations of religion in the face of debilitating illness." But, he added, the pope's condition forced him to delegate much of his vast power to his secretary and a few conservative Vatican cardinals.

Popes are said to walk "in the shoes of the fisherman" — St. Peter. Whoever follows John Paul will have big shoes to fill. "The next pope will inevitably be compared with this pope," said Buckley, the San Francisco theologian. "If he doesn't have the dramatic flair of this one, he will be criticized."